


the way you went

by mjules



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2018-08-16 13:30:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8104219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjules/pseuds/mjules
Summary: Zevran leaves the empire he and Cousland have built in Antiva to chase down the Crows in Kirkwall.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written to a prompt on tumblr.

Antiva fit Kaide in a way that no place in Ferelden ever had. Antiva City had shadows deep enough for his plans, his way of operating. If Zevran could have handpicked a partner to help him gut and conquer the Crows, he could not have chosen better. Antiva fit Kaide like Zevran fit him: perfectly.

But the people he was hunting were scattered across Thedas, and when Zevran told his lover where he was going, the swelter of Antivan summer felt as chilled as the deepest winter Fereldan mud.

“The Free Marches.” Kaide's voice was as dark as the shadow the hood cast over his face.

“If I don’t –”

“I know.” Kaide cut him off with a frown. “I know.” They couldn’t let it go unchallenged, couldn’t let Zevran continue to be threatened, couldn’t let the dissension against them and their rule spread. And they __could__ send someone else, but Zevran would be the best. He knew who he was hunting; he knew how to hunt. He could slip through the city-states like no one else.

They didn’t talk about it again as Zevran prepared to leave. Kaide ruled the guilds with an iron hand, though not a fist, and leaving him in charge would as good as Zevran staying there himself. Kaide raised his assassins better than Zevran could have dreamed of. They liked to play Guildmaster-and-Recruit in the bedroom, and they switched off who was who, but sometimes when Kaide was the Guildmaster, Zevran pretended he was young, too young. He pretended Kaide was really the master who had bought him, raised him, __trained__ him.

His training was better the second time around.

The day Zevran left, Kaide broke his silence and caught him at the door, face open, eyes wounded.

“Zev…”

His fingers curled loosely around Zevran’s wrist, holding him. No master stared at him now; Cousland looked younger and more lost than he had on the day Zevran had tried to kill him. The day he’d tried to die.

Zevran turned his hand over, slid Kaide’s fingers in between his own. “Amor mio, the look you are giving me would put your hound to shame. Do you wish to break my heart before I go?”

Kaide’s fingers squeezed his tightly, but he shuttered his face, finding his masks and walls again. Zevran thought he still looked rather brittle.

“Don’t stay away long,” Kaide said, a master’s orders. “I do not like sleeping in a cold bed.”

Something jumped into Zevran’s throat, some small flame of jealousy, and he glared. “If I am gone too long, will you find someone else to warm it?”

“No.” Kaide looked furious now. “I will come after you and drag you back to Antiva, Crows or not, and tie you to it.”

Zevran lunged; the kiss was hard, ferocious, painful. He tasted blood. For a moment he thought of warming Kaide’s bed one last time, postponing his departure for an hour or so. But he knew his lover, and he knew himself, and he knew if he didn’t leave now he would never go.

When they broke apart, Kaide was trembling.

“You __swore__ to me,” he hissed. “Swear it again.”

For a man who practically ruled Antiva City, Zevran thought, he made his one weakness far too obvious. It was a flaw Zev couldn’t begrudge him.

“I swear I will not leave you – not for money, not for temptation, not for death.”

Kaide settled, kissing Zev’s forehead. “I will be waiting for you when you return.”

“In an empty bed,” Zevran reiterated, showing a weakness of his own.

“Empty and cold.”

They did not kiss again, and as Antiva City faded behind him, Zevran felt the chill with every mile.


End file.
